Testing time for Chinese media as party tightens control

December 18, 2013|Reuters

By Natalie Thomas

BEIJING, Dec 19 (Reuters) - Early next year, Chinesejournalists will have to pass a new ideology exam to keep theirpress cards, in what reporters say is another example of theruling Communist Party's increasing control over the media underPresident Xi Jinping.

It is the first time reporters have been required to takesuch a test en masse, state media has said.

The exam will be based on a 700-page manual being sold inbookshops. The manual is peppered with directives such as "it isabsolutely not permitted for published reports to feature anycomments that go against the party line", and "the relationshipbetween the party and the news media is one of leader and theled".

The impact of increased control in the past year has beenchilling, half a dozen reporters at Chinese state media toldReuters, mostly on condition of anonymity to avoid repercussionsfor talking to the foreign media without permission.

"The tightening is very obvious in newspapers that have animpact on public opinion. These days there are lots of thingsthey aren't allowed to report," said a journalist at a currentaffairs magazine.

China has also intensified efforts to curb the work offoreign news organisations. Both the New York Times Co and Bloomberg News have not been given new journalist visas formore than a year after they published stories about the wealthof family members of former Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao andPresident Xi Jinping, respectively.

The General Administration of Press and Publication, a keymedia regulator, has said via state media that the aim of theexam and accompanying training is to "increase the overallquality of China's journalists and encourage them to establishsocialism as their core system of values".

It did not respond to questions from Reuters about the examor press freedom in China.

"FIGHT TO THE DEATH"

Traditionally, Chinese state media has been the key vehiclefor party propaganda. But reforms over the past decade that haveallowed greater media commercialisation and limited increases ineditorial independence, combined with the rise of social media,have weakened government control, academics said.

China media watchers point to a flurry of editorials afterXi spoke to propaganda officials in August as evidence ofconcern within the party that control over public discourse wasslipping. The official Beijing Daily described the party'sstruggle to win hearts and minds as a "fight to the death".

Some reporters and academics, however, trace the start ofthe tougher attitude to a strike lasting several days in Januaryby journalists at an outspoken newspaper, the Southern Weekly,after censors scrapped a New Year editorial calling for China toenshrine constitutional rights. Xi had taken over the CommunistParty only several weeks earlier.

"This was a shock to Xi Jinping's leadership (circle)," saidXiao Qiang, a China media expert at the University of Californiaat Berkeley.

"They own these newspapers. That makes it an internal,public rebellion, which made the censorship and media controlmechanism look really bad."

The strike ended after local propaganda officials promisedto take a lighter hand with censorship. While journalists therewould not talk publicly about the matter, some senior reportershave since left the paper, two sources familiar with the mattersaid, adding they did not know why. The Southern Weekly declinedto comment.

MARXIST NEWS VALUES

Journalists will have to do a minimum 18 hours of trainingon topics including Marxist news values and Socialism withChinese Characteristics, as well as journalism ethics beforesitting the exam in January or February.

Reporters who fail the test will have to re-sit the exam andundergo the training again. It's not clear what happens toreporters who refuse to take it.

While in theory all reporters in China need a press card toreport, many do so without one, said Zhan Jiang, a journalismprofessor at the Beijing Foreign Studies University.

Recent scandals in the Chinese media had also raised somequestions about the industry's professionalism, Zhan said.

A reporter for the Guangzhou-based New Express tabloid wasarrested in October after confessing on state television toaccepting bribes for fabricating more than a dozen stories aboutChangsha-based Zoomlion Heavy Industry Science and Technology CoLtd.

The reporter wrote that Zoomlion had engaged in sales fraudand exaggerated its profits, accusations strongly denied by thestate-owned construction equipment maker.

"It's hard to say if this is really to improve the actionsof journalists, or to control them. You don't know what (theauthorities) are thinking," Zhan said.

Reporters had little doubt about the aim of the exam.

"The purpose of this kind of control is just to wear youdown, to make you feel like political control is inescapable,"said a reporter for a newspaper in the booming southern city ofGuangzhou.